Bush faces a stalled agenda, as 2006 races rev up (C.S. Monitor)

[Up2Late]

(* shifts to "...blame the Democrats..." Mode)

USA > Domestic Politics
from the June 20, 2005 edition

Bush faces a stalled agenda, as 2006 races rev up
He focuses on Social Security and Iraq as public support fades and bipartisan talk ebbs.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – As President Bush's ambitious agenda sags under the weight of public skepticism - and a growing willingness among some Republicans to break ranks - political observers would love nothing more than to be the proverbial fly on the wall in the Oval Office.

Of course, those who know what Bush and his advisers are saying to each other aren't talking. But in public, at least, the White House betrays no hint that it will change course on its two biggest agenda items, Social Security and Iraq. A third priority, tax reform, has been put off until the fall.

Only five months into his second term, Bush has already begun to abandon talk of bipartisanship and blame the Democrats for what he calls their "agenda of the roadblock" - a tactic that points more toward scoring points in the 2006 congressional elections than winning converts to his side in the current, closely divided Congress. The 2006 campaign has already begun, creating an incentive for Republicans to put protecting themselves ahead of loyalty to the term- limited Bush.

The White House, for its part, seems to be following a familiar pattern of sticking to its guns until the last possible moment. "They don't yield until it appears that all will be lost unless they compromise," says Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. "They definitely play a game of brinkmanship, and that is to convey an impression that's not just determined but pugnacious. Then, when it appears that that kind of bluff doesn't work, then and only then do they quietly consider compromises."\

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